August 19, 2025 • 45 mins
Our summer tradition at Here’s the Thing continues, as staff members choose their favorite conversations from the archives for our Summer Staff Pick series. This week, we revisit Alec’s conversation with Barry Gibb, the last surviving member of the legendary Bee Gees. Barry reflects on the group’s rise from childhood dreams of stardom to becoming one of the best-selling music acts of all time. He speaks with Alec about the brothers’ signature “blood harmony,” their songwriting legacy, and navigating the highs and lows of fame and family. Barry also shares how he continues to honor the Bee Gees’ music—most recently through the HBO documentary How Can You Mend a Broken Heart and his Nashville-inspired album Greenfields: The Gibb Brothers Songbook (Vol. 1).
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the
Thing from My Heart Radio. It's summer, and that means
it's time for our tradition at Here's the Thing, where
the staff share their favorite episodes from our archives in
our Summer Staff Picks series. Next up is producer Zach McNeice.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Thanks Alec. There are a few musical acts in history
less polarizing than the Bee Gees. I can't recall anyone
at any time in my life saying they weren't a fan.
It's impossible not to sing along with mega hits like
Staying Alive, How Deep is Your Love? More than a Woman,
Night Fever. The list goes on and on. I was
(00:41):
excited to have Barry Gibbon with Alec and the conversation
was wide ranging and full of surprises. Here's Alec with
Barry Gibb from twenty twenty one.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
As a man. The recently released HBO documentary How Can
You Mend a Broken Heart mentions the term blood harmony
or bio harmony, that unique blend when siblings sing together.
Think The Beach Boys, The Jackson Five, The Everly Brothers,
(01:22):
and The Beg's.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
Flag.
Speaker 4 (01:33):
So Love somebod.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
My guest today is Barry Gibb with his younger twin brothers,
Robin and Morris. The Begs conquered the world with their
ethereal harmonies. Today Barry misses his brothers. Morris died in
two thousand and three, Robin in twenty twelve. I wanted
to know if he'd ever considered what kind of solo
(01:57):
career he might have had.
Speaker 4 (01:59):
Well, I don't know. I know what I wanted. I
wanted to be a pop star or a rock star
or whatever it is that goes through our heads at
that point. At some point in your life, you wanted
to be an actor, you know. All I know is
that the moment that my brothers began to do individual
things and I didn't know about them. Then I thought, well,
it's okay. I can do individual things too, but I
(02:20):
never did that before they did. And once that began,
I thought, oh, oh wow, they've gone and done this
on their own. Morris has done this, or Rob has
done this. It's pretty good, you know. Wow. I didn't
know that they did that without even a question, so
I figured, well it was okay, And once Barbara Streisan
came along, I just grabbed the bar. You know, I thought,
(02:43):
this is a wonderful opportunity and I love her and
the idea of working with her. I learned so much
from that. And I think you learn things from just
about everyone you work with. You just pick up something
that you didn't know before.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Who brought you in streisand together? Was it a produce?
Speaker 4 (03:00):
And no, it was Barbara calling me up about eighty
one eighty two. And she just called up and said,
will you make an album with me? And so after
I got up off off the ground, I told my
wife and I told everybody in my family that I
just had this call from Barbra Streisen, and of course
everyone's going, you got to do it, you got to
(03:21):
do it. And I was terrified. So I came to
the conclusion that if I call Neil Diamond you don't
bring me flowers, that he might give me some advice.
So I called Neil Diamond and I said, what is
she like?
Speaker 1 (03:37):
What is it?
Speaker 4 (03:37):
What's the experience like working with her? He just said,
don't worry about it, just go do it. You know,
everything falls into place if the stars aligned. Don't worry.
He said, She's terrific and she's changeable. But that's fine.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
Just go with her. You know when you recorded with her,
were you in the same studio for some portion or
all of it or not all of it?
Speaker 4 (04:00):
Cut all the tracks in Miami at Criteria, which is
now the Hit Factory. The interesting thing about Barbara was
that if she sang something, she considered it to be sung.
She didn't think she had to sing it again. And
that's old school, you know. It's like that's how she
grew up. And I would say, you know, especially on Guilty,
first song she sang, I said, can you give us
(04:20):
about four or five tracks? She says, well, I just
sang it. No, No, can you give us choices? Can
you give us four or five tracks so that we
can pick and choose which are the best moments? But
I just sang it.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Boy, I'm going to try that when I go to work.
That's it. I'm like, Bob Hope, I'm like, that's one take,
fellas Bobby God, I hope.
Speaker 4 (04:45):
So hit the spot say the words get out.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Yeah, you talk about, you know, wanting multiple tracks to
choose from when you were recording with your brothers. Was
that a rule you had where you had unanimity about
what the take was and what worked or was there
a there was there a producer there that you will,
entrusted the decision.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
To myself but really also adhering to my brother's opinions.
We never did anything where it was two out of three.
It wasn't a democracy. You know. We had to be
in total agreement about everything we were doing. So if
we love something, we were all one, you know, and okay,
what do we do next? What's the next step? Yeah,
(05:25):
we need a lead guitar on this, We need something here,
we need something there. But we were always in agreement,
and real life is very different, so you know, we
didn't live together, but we did have the van. We
did have the minivan with the Beg's on the side.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
People talk about the documentary has introduced, at least as
far as I'm concerned, it might have existed somewhere else,
the term bioharmony. And when I first heard that phrase,
I was like, my god, I never thought about that,
that they sing differently and they interact differently because they're
actually related. I believe that that's true.
Speaker 4 (06:02):
That I've never heard that, But yeah, I agree with
all of that, and there are many different side stories
to all of that. I mean, the Beetles sound my brothers.
So there's a lot about where you come from. The
Beetles come from Liverpool. They all have the same accent,
the same tone, if you like, and so blending together
was something special for them. You didn't really have to
(06:23):
be brothers. And I was talking to a little big
town yesterday and they are incredible and they all come
from the same basic area of the country. So it
wasn't that they were blood. It was that they all
had the same dialect, the same kind of tonality. You know.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
That's Nashville when you're working with people that are your family. Yeah,
and God.
Speaker 4 (06:44):
Knows, yes, you have brothers.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
I have brothers in that way that you want everyone
to do well, you know, I want my brothers to
do well and succeed and have what they want. And
you realize that the business is fragile, you know, even
when you're successful, when you're with your brothers and you're
recording with your brothers, and they've been gone for a
while now.
Speaker 4 (07:08):
Yeah, about eight years since Robin left.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
So it's eight years now where both of them are gone.
And when Morris passed away, was it understood between you
and Rob that you wouldn't continue just the two of you.
Speaker 4 (07:22):
No, Robin wanted us to wanted to continue, and I didn't.
I didn't think it was the right thing to do.
I thought we should suspend the group as it stood,
and if we were going to work any more together,
we would do it as the two brothers, you know,
we wouldn't do it as the Begs. So. But but
Robin didn't agree with me. He wanted to continue being
(07:44):
the Beg's. But then lo and behold. What I didn't
know is that Robin was getting ill, and as time
went on he became more immorial. But he didn't tell anybody,
and so you could you could see that some thing
was wrong, but you didn't know what it was. And
(08:04):
it wasn't like he was capable of really doing anything,
because in my opinion, he wasn't, you know, he was.
He was going very frail, very quickly.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Did you guys when you went your separate ways, was
there always a sense of like the Eagles and like
Fleetwood Mac and like CSNY where they profess to have
some tension between them, yet they always got back together
because that band together whole was the cash cow for them.
It was never going to be as successful as that did.
(08:35):
The begs go through the same thing where where each
of you had your respective and you had a very
successful solo career.
Speaker 4 (08:42):
Well, the background to all of that, what you just
said is really important. The cash cow was not the
center of attention because because for us it was always
tough to get paid. Always that's shock and roll, you know.
And we didn't really make any real money until Saturday
Night Fever. So success equals money that wasn't happening for us,
(09:06):
so we didn't worry about it. What we worried about
was getting more hits, making more records, writing more songs,
you know, that was what preoccupied us. Crosby, Stills, Nash
and Young When we were doing Children of the World,
they would sitting along the wall, four of them, watching
us do the vocals, and they were in the next studio.
So the greatest thing about all of those days is
(09:27):
that the Eagles Leonard Skinner were always in the next
room or two rooms away. And in those days you
could visit each other. There was no you know, you
can't come in here, there was none of that, you know,
and we enjoyed that I could go in and listen
to them. I played with them all night without coming
(09:48):
up with anything creative. We were just having a blast.
You know.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Was there a sense from you or all three of
you that you had something special and that was the
hand and you wanted to play.
Speaker 4 (10:01):
Well it was a brand name. Well, you know, then
you're dealing with the brand name which wasn't even called
that when we were a group. You know, there was
no such thing as.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
A brand name, you know, as branding.
Speaker 4 (10:10):
Yeah. Yeah, So I've had people come up to me
at Clive Davis's dinner a couple of years back. I
worked for Forbes magazine. I'd like to talk to you
about branding. I don't know anything about branding, you know.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
He got me there.
Speaker 4 (10:24):
We just became a group, so it wasn't really this
is the cash cow, this is what we got to do.
I think it was that way for a lot of people.
But I remember the time when Rso the company took
away our song copyrights without telling us, and so suddenly
they owned all of our songs.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
How were they able to do that?
Speaker 4 (10:47):
By forming a company in Holland and playing all kinds
of tax games, they managed to acquire all of our
copyrights without us knowing, And that caused really like World
War three. I mean, so you look at the period
when the b were in trouble, look behind the scenes,
you know there was something else going on that was intense.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
Were you able to get the rights back?
Speaker 4 (11:08):
Got them all back, But that took a lot of
energy out of me. It took me about a year
or two to finally get things back in our own ownership.
I told Robert Stigwood that I would never write another
song if he didn't give back the songs. And Morris
and rob they didn't really want to fight. They were
still too naive. They just sort of, you know, it's
(11:30):
having success, let's not argue with it.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
But did that fall on you to be the more
the business mind in the trio would do? The other
two were more pure artists, and they were like, hey man,
I really don't have the stomach for that.
Speaker 4 (11:42):
Well. I couldn't stomach the idea that someone could take
away your songs. I just couldn't live with that. So
if they were okay with that, it wasn't really a
matter of that's how they felt. It was more a
matter that Robert Stigwood and Rso played divide and conquer,
you know, so they would nurture and be nicer Robin
and Morris, and Robin and Morris wouldn't worry about it,
(12:05):
you know. So it's all about that. It's people whispering
in your ears. It's the same with every group. You know,
there's always going to be someone in the industry that
thinks they can make something out of you if you
don't have your brothers. And that was said to Robin,
was said to Morris, and was said to.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
Me, I want to do a movie about your career.
I'm going to do a narrative film, and I want
to play the record executive who gets each of you
alone in the same thing. It says, you know, Marris,
if you just unloaded these two losers, you have no idea.
That's right, the heights we could hit and listen to Rob,
these guys are just dead weight around your I mean
(12:42):
your brother. I mean, we've seen every color they have, Barry,
I mean, come on, these guys are just dragging you down.
Speaker 4 (12:48):
Man.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
You know all that stuff divide and conquer.
Speaker 4 (12:51):
But industrial Yeah, not the families, not the wives, but
the people who sought to gain from something, or in fact,
just through Robert Stigwood, you know. So it was. It
was a huge industrial game. Armored Urtekin and who was
the head of Atlantic Records, and Robert began to fall
out because jive talking in the movie Saturday Night Fever.
(13:15):
Robert only used the live version of jive talking so
you wouldn't have to pay the extra, you know, and
Areef Mardin and Armored went berserk because they didn't have
a record in Saturday Night Fever. They didn't know it's
going to be successful. In fact, most of the time,
I think they doubted us anyway. So when that happened,
they were unhappy. They were really unhappy, and so I
(13:37):
think that was the cause of a lot of a
lot of crisis points for us as well as Robert.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
I'm Alec Baldwin. You were listening to Here's the Thing.
If you love conversations with legendary singers, be sure to
check out my episode with the incomparable barbous diceand we
shared lunch and talked about our love for food and
Barbara's early dreams of fame.
Speaker 5 (14:08):
I read Nancy Drew Mysteries, I read movie magazines, you know,
and dream that someday maybe I could be famous.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Did you have that dream then?
Speaker 5 (14:19):
When you were here, I would have my pint of
coffee ice cream Briers and sit in my bed and
dream go to the movies sometimes on a Saturday afternoon.
The Lowis Kings with had the greatest ice cream, and
we also.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Well, yeah, here the rest of my conversation with Barbara
streisand at Here'sthething dot org. After the break we talk
about disco and how the Beg's soundtrack to Saturday Night
Fever in nineteen seventy seven brought them near total domination
of the music charts and the dance floor. I'm Alec
(15:12):
Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing. The bee
Gees distinguished themselves vocally with their lush harmonies. Robin had
his distinctive vibrato, Morris anchored the melody, and then, like
(15:33):
an ace pitcher discovering a slider, Barry found his falsetto.
Speaker 4 (15:45):
Well. It first happened on a song call Please read
me that I did a few different falsetto harmonies to
that song, basically because of the Beach Boys and Brian
Wilson and I forgot all about that. So we were
nights on Broadway and a reef Mardenar, producer at that point,
said can anybody scream like Paul McCartney. We all looked
(16:08):
at each other and said, well, how do you mean?
He said, well, you know, like I saw her standing
there and how Paul suddenly screams a high note? Can
anyone Can any of you guys do that? And I said, well, yeah,
I done something like that way back, I said, but
I became the volunteer. Nobody else really wanted to take
a shot at that, so I went out there and
(16:30):
just discovered it. At first, it was tentative and nervous
and and I didn't know what it was. And then
it just began to get stronger and stronger.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
With you and your brothers, there's such a quotient of
beauty inside the music. There's so much sensitivity inside of
the lyrics and the singing. And I'm wondering, when you
would perform live, what was your ritual if you had one.
On the day of a live show, did you coddle
(16:59):
your voice? How did you prep for a show?
Speaker 4 (17:02):
I would wake up singing, because after a show you
lose your voice. It's gone. So the next morning you
just hope and pray that it's going to come back again,
you know, so when you wake up, you start warming up.
So I'd be doing a lot of this different range stuff.
One set of principles for the falsetto another set of
(17:23):
principles for the real voice. Check out your highest note.
Do it all day and it comes back if you're lucky.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
And how much before you would do a live show,
how much would you rehearse prior to going on the road.
Speaker 4 (17:36):
Rehearsal you would usually be about a month with weekends
out so you could work at your chops back again,
and that way you develop strength and you develop confidence.
And these days I had these three ladies that are amazing,
and so any song where Robin might have sung, they
(17:57):
cover me and they do those things. But there's actly
nothing like walking from the dressing room to the stage.
Nothing like it in the world.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Really.
Speaker 4 (18:05):
I think Bruce Springsteen said it, there's something magical about
hearing the crowd two minutes before you walk on.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
The stake coming. You're getting closer to them.
Speaker 4 (18:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
Yeah, music occupies such a unique place in people's lives,
and really dwarfs of film and television. Yeah, because film
and television is something you have to make an appointment
with you have to sit and watch it. Where music
is something that you can have in your life any anywhere.
You can be driving, you could be having sex, you
(18:34):
can be at the gym, it could be jogging. Music
is in your ears at will, whenever you want it
to be.
Speaker 4 (18:41):
That's true.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
And therefore, and I think when people I always say
the same line. When you die, you don't remember an
episode of Seinfeld? You remember? How can you ment a
broken heart? You know what I mean?
Speaker 4 (18:52):
Yes, I do. And then the question then becomes why
why does music and harmonics and vibrations and means so
much to us? You know, I love Frank Sinatra as
much as I love Pavarotti. I love the Distant Past,
the immigrant music, as much as I love country music.
I don't have categories, you know, I just love what
(19:13):
I love and it's not to any music. But why
why do we all do this?
Speaker 5 (19:18):
You know?
Speaker 4 (19:18):
What is the need in us? So I want to
do something about that. I'd love to do a program
about trying to understand that.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
I mean, this is a corny question, but like have
you ever stood there? And you were going to sing
a lyric? There was a particularly exquisite lyric of one
of your most famous songs, and you thought you were
going to break down crying.
Speaker 4 (19:41):
Yeah, have you ever.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
Been almost overwhelmed by the music you're singing?
Speaker 4 (19:45):
Yes, we wrote a song called Wish You Were Here
for Andy because he passed away at the age of thirty,
and we wanted to do it on stage and we
never could. So, you know, we got through about two
or three lines and then looked at each other. We
can't do this. We just can't do this. It's it
makes it just makes me cry. I just can't sing it.
(20:08):
At least the song is there, you know. But yes,
that was a moment. That was a moment. It's all
part of it. You're you're in a way, you're sort
of acting, and you're pretending to be someone that you
probably don't believe you are anyway. You know, the song's
always moved Me? How deep is your Love Moves Me?
And and immortality the song that's Celindian.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
I can't believe you said that. Every time I hear
that song, I think I would break down if I
sang that song because just the meaning of that song.
You wrote that song? Yeah, yeah, what is that song about?
In your mind?
Speaker 4 (20:41):
Well, I think it's it's at some point in your
life you reflect on who you are and what you
are and the culmination of your opinion, and if you
can do that, then everything's okay, you know. So so
for me, it's like, so this is who I am,
this is all I know, and I must choose to
live for all that I can and give the spark
that makes the power grow.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
But I also find it's kind of a poem, if
you will, about being a famous artist. You know, like
inside some of those lyrics, I hear someone sitting there going,
there's no turning back for me.
Speaker 4 (21:13):
Now that's right, you know, that's right. But we don't
say goodbye, and that to me is the key part
of the song. It doesn't matter whether I'm here or not,
there are no goodbyes, you know. And it was written
for Robert Stigwood wanting a song for the stage version
of Saturday Night Fever, and we'd already come up with
the song, but he wanted the guy in the show
(21:35):
to sing it, and I thought, but this is a
woman's song. It's a woman's song. Some songs are for
women and some songs are for men, you know. So
there's a masculinity in some music, and there's a femininity
in music. That's why I work with Barbara. That's right
with Diana Ross and the ability to to Selene to
lock in to the feminine side, you know, and understand
(21:56):
that Barbara Streisen still doesn't quite understand what woman in
love means. You know, it's it's a right her and
get a Rebuddal says it's a right at offend, which
is in the song. She'ays what does that mean? It's
a right at offend? And I did spend some time
explaining before the Me Too movement that women can fall
(22:20):
in love too without telling anybody. It's not all down
to the guy, you know, and I had to sort
of talk her through that. Kenny Rogers still doesn't know
what I was in the streamers about.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Come on, Kenny, well, let's let's let's throw your cards
in the table here. What songs that you've immortalized do
you not really know what they're about? Come on, it's
it's time for you to fess about. What song are
you saying you don't really get the meaning of.
Speaker 4 (22:48):
We never recorded a song that we didn't understand, you know.
There were some very abstract songs Lemon's Never Forget. I
think he's a very abstract song and not everybody's favorite.
Everything had a purpose to it. We began to learn
from the Beatles that you could write about anything. You
could write about life itself. You know. So you had
Paperback Writer or and you had Yellow Submarine, and it
(23:12):
was okay, you know, you can write about these things.
It doesn't all have to be about having your heart
broken or falling in love or they went through that,
but then they understood, they understood something about life. That's
where Sergeant Pepper reached its point, the culmination of the
peak create creativity that these guys were giving us.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
You know, well, when you mentioned Sargant Pepper, Yeah, and
I think when you go into Saturday Night Fever and
when you're inside that experience and you're recording the music
to that, did they show you cuts of the film?
Did you see some footage of the film or the
whole film to inspire you to go write the music?
Or you had to write the music without any cinematic
(23:54):
reference point.
Speaker 4 (23:55):
Robert Center's a script, but we didn't read it. We
just we just listened to his verbal describing what it was,
which is to him it was so you didn't.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
See the film finished and then write the music.
Speaker 4 (24:05):
No. Wow. He sent us a script, but we didn't
read it, and we just said, tell us what you want,
tell us what you think it is. Well, it's tribal
rites of a new Saturday Night okay. And that was
an article by Nick conn And in New York Magazine, right.
And he said, but I need a better name for
the film. And I said, well, what about night Fever?
(24:27):
And he said, no, that's too pornographic. I said, okay.
But then in the end it turned into Saturday Night
Fever and I didn't know.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
So when you're inside that experience of making that music, yeah,
do you kind of know that you're onto something or
you had no idea what that was going to become.
Speaker 4 (24:45):
We had no idea what it was going to become.
And we were trying to reinvent ourselves anyway. We just
mixed a live album that we'd done in La and
then Robert called up and said, I need five or
six songs for this film with this new gentleman named
John Travolta. So okay, all of that in itself is
exciting enough. It sort of kickstarted the ideas and staying
(25:09):
alive was one of those ideas. More than a woman.
If I can't have you, how deep your love? Obviously
a night fever. So we just started writing. We were
fifty miles outside of Paris. We didn't have, you know, television,
we didn't have any of those distractions, if you like,
and we just got on with it. And about three weeks,
(25:29):
two or three weeks, and then we got serious when
we got back to Miami and made the records for real.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Well, I just want to say as a reference point
that I am in Washington, d C. I went to
college down there first my then girlfriend who was very
much of a nightclub dancing She and her roommate, I
think there was like three couples. We go see the
movie Saturday Night Fever, and we said to ourselves, and
(25:56):
the guys are look at each other, going, Jesus Christ,
look at this. You think I'm gonna get up there
and do that in a room full of people, Like
she wants to go to clubs and go dancing like this.
I said, that's never happening. Right within two weeks, I
had the platform shoes, I had my hair blow dried
to death. My hair was blow dried like it was
(26:17):
some French pastry. I put more hairspray. My hair was
all poofed out and born out. And the shirt I got,
the shirt opened right to I got the I'm ready,
I'm ready to go. It was a tsunami Saturday night.
Fever was a tsunami.
Speaker 4 (26:37):
Yeah, whether you liked it or not, it was gonna
stay around.
Speaker 6 (26:40):
It was.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
We liked it. It was just everywhere.
Speaker 4 (26:43):
Well that my story is that we were starting to
shoot Sogeant Pepper the movie, right and and we had
Peter Frampton had his own Winter Bagel, and we had
one Winter Bagel between us, and about two weeks into
shooting the same time, Fever came out and all of
the dancers in the movie were suddenly dancing to this
(27:05):
music at the lunch breaks, and we could hear it
from our winter a bagel, Like, what what are they doing?
Why are they playing Southern feva? You know, because at
that point it hadn't taken off, you know, And within
about a week we had our own separate Winner bagels.
So there's Hollywood right there.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
You know, I don't do that.
Speaker 4 (27:25):
We made that out, but we made that movie. The
soundtrack to that movie we're the only other group to
record the Whold of Sergeant Pepper with George Martin. Right,
so there's something that's something I'm proud of.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
How would you describe that experience? You're performing somebody else's music.
Speaker 4 (27:40):
Oh yeah, but we were learning sergendary music, yes, legendary music,
and we wanted to perform that music, and George Martin
was happy to show us the different tricks that that
they would all get up to, you know, the song
sun King or because they all sang the same melody
once and then they would sing the harmony all together,
(28:03):
the same thing again, all singing the same melody, and
then they do the third harmony and they'd sing all
that together, so that you've got three guys on three
tracks singing each harmony, not three part harmony. And then
you play that back and it's mind blowing. So we
just learned stuff. We learned stuff.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
Whose idea was it to do the documentary?
Speaker 4 (28:25):
Well, it was Frank Marshall Nigel Sinclair, and they had
done the Sinarchi documentary, they'd done a couple of others
that they were very proud of. The Beatles eight days
a week, I think they did that the day that
we signed with Capital was the day I met Frank
Marshall and Steve Barnett, the president at that point, introduced
(28:46):
me to Frank Marshall. Frank Marshall said, we're going to
do this documentary and tell us something about how it
began for you guys, and I did. I told him
a story and he went, Okay, we're going to do
this documentary. That's how it began. But it was it
was two years, two and a half years before we
saw anything, and the Verse Cup didn't fly very well.
(29:09):
Why there were too many on truths, too many misconceptions
that everyone was saying, well, that's true, but it really wasn't.
So I had to take issue with some of the things.
And I know that in the end some of those
things may still be there. But I could never watch
it again because I can't watch my family pass one
(29:30):
up to the other. That's not fun.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
Barry Gibb Subscribe to Here's the Thing on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. While you're there,
leave us a review. When we return from the break,
Barry talks about his regrets, and we'll also hear from
his son Steve. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to
(30:17):
Here's the Thing that is, of course more than a
woman from the soundtrack of Saturday Night Fever. It's been
a busy time for Barry Gibb. There's the new HBO
(30:39):
documentary about the Beg's, and earlier this year, Barry released
an album of Beg's songs covered by some of Nashville's
biggest names. It's called Greenfields.
Speaker 4 (30:51):
These are people I admired the most. These are countrilogists
that have always been in my blood so ever since
I was a child. Dolly Pardons has been a really
important part of music for me.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
Inxting words take them to me.
Speaker 4 (31:13):
I wanted to get people I admired the most to
sing our songs. And maybe it's volume two that it
will happen in the future. I don't know. But this
was great fun and I was more than intimidated. But
it wasn't in my hands. It was in Dave Cobbs sense.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
When you say you were more than intimidating, absolutely, how
so well, how many people do you truly admire?
Speaker 4 (31:36):
You know, so when you're in their company you just
feel When I meet Paul McCartney. I don't know what
to say. My mouth won't say anything. You know. All
I can say is I feel fine.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
And you granted they must have been intimidated to sing
your music as well.
Speaker 4 (31:58):
Oh yeah, no, it was all the way aroun There's
no question about that. The only person I think was
not intimidated by any of us was Dave Cobb, the producer,
So he was the decider, was the decider, he was
the director.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
Well the cut you do with Dolly, Yeah, what a
beautiful rendering that is of that song. When you hear
other people sing your songs, yeah, what goes through your mind?
Speaker 4 (32:22):
It's a very flattering thing. It's like anytime over the
years anyone sang one of our songs. If someone's covering
your song, that's a huge compliment. So I have the
same feeling every time, and that goes back a long,
long way. So anyone singing our songs is wow, why
did that person sing our song?
Speaker 1 (32:41):
Now, when someone wants to sing your songs, yeah, is
it open to anybody.
Speaker 4 (32:45):
Anyone who records our song doesn't need to ask us.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
They don't.
Speaker 4 (32:49):
It's just the way it works. No one needs to
ask us to sing one of our songs. If you're
using one of our songs in a movie or in
a sing license like a commercial, you have to ask,
can you have to make it?
Speaker 1 (33:00):
Sure?
Speaker 4 (33:01):
But beyond that, anyone can record our songs.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
Would they pay you the royalties for you as the songwriter?
Speaker 4 (33:06):
Well, it we'd be paid indirectly by the system that works,
like mechanical royalties and things like that. Sure. The only
question I ever had was, I don't like commercials about alcohol.
I don't like commercials about cigarettes.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
Is it true that you have a someone's making a
feature film about the bechees?
Speaker 4 (33:25):
Yeah, the biopics in its own process right now. Graham
King is in charge of that. He did the Bohemian
Rhapsody movie, right.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
Are you going to have some participation in that?
Speaker 4 (33:34):
Absolutely? I'm sort of in agreement with Graham, and that
is that sometimes the story can be a little different
than the truth, but not too much.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
You more than your two brothers. I'll say this only
because this is my recollection of it. You know, you
guys would get out there and sing. When you watched
you sing on film, you know, it's a different story
when you're just listening to the music. But when you'd
watch you sing. Your brothers are pretty straightforward musicians, and
(34:08):
here you are, and the hair and the clothes. He
was like this preposterously handsome guy. And then you'd open
your mouth and you'd sing these like heart stoppingly beautiful songs.
And I want to ask you that, when the Beegs
were at the zenith, when everything was just clicking for you,
what was the best part of it and what was
(34:28):
the downside of it for you?
Speaker 4 (34:30):
You know, there's a lot of things I regret. Saturday
Night Fever wasn't something I regretted. I didn't like people
disregarding us after fever. I thought that was unfair. But
that's the industry, you know, it's very fragile. As you
said earlier, it will it will turn on you in
a heartbeat. And so I think generally what I regret
(34:52):
is that we became overexposed. And I think that that
was from fever, Yeah, yeah, and everything else. Just having
five songs in the top ten or three songs in
the top five. We were becoming pretty tainted. You know,
we were beginning not to really appreciate having a number
one record, but we equaled the Beatles record. We are
(35:14):
six number ones in a row, and that was all right.
I can live with that. I can little work that'll work,
you know.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
But I mean my other thing is that I find
that the business is that people tend to look at
something that's super successful and say, well, if it's successful,
then it's like potato chips. It can't be really that, right, great,
it's like a snack food. If it's something that appeals
to the general public. Two masses of the general publish.
If you're selling tens of millions of records, it can't
(35:44):
really be that it's.
Speaker 4 (35:45):
Too commercial, right right?
Speaker 1 (35:47):
Did you get it? You got a whiff of that.
Speaker 4 (35:49):
Yes, But you know, I look back a long way
and I see the final year of Elvis's life, the
final year of the Beatles, Michael Jackson, and how they
began to fragment, you know, and because nothing ever really less.
A group is not a natural state to be in
unless you're relatives, unless you're brothers or sisters. So I
(36:11):
see all that. I see that in the end, people
like Elvis Michael Beatles began to make records that weren't
quite up to the scratch of Sergeant Pebble.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
Was well when the Disco inferno, if you will dies down.
What happens to your songwriting when you realize that's petered
out that.
Speaker 4 (36:31):
Well because of the backlash, We didn't base our lives
on Fever. We just sort of well back to the studio,
you know, we were. You know, I've been married for
fifty years now, last September it was fifty years, and
I've had a wonderful time. You know, I love that
woman and we've been together for that long, and so
I always had her at my back. I always. I
(36:55):
never I never had to be out there on my own.
You had a home family. So at the end of
FEVA we were starting to raise kids, you know, and
so the distractions were plentiful. They were plentiful. And you know,
even when that happened, you think to yourself. I know,
I thought to myself, well maybe that's it. That was warm,
that was great, that was wonderful. Maybe go back to Australia,
(37:18):
maybe go back to England, and you start to question
your life and if it's time to change your life.
That was the moment that you could have done it.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
Speaking of family, your son plays with you from.
Speaker 4 (37:31):
Time, Yes, Steevie direct, Yeah, he's right here.
Speaker 1 (37:33):
Son, Stevie plays with you, and he also plays some
other types of music. He's like into heavy metal or
absolutely right, we need Stevie to come on just for
one second. Tell us, yeah, does he get the bends
when he goes from the music of Barry gibb to
the music of Metallica or whatever you're doing. What's the
scene in between that kind of music?
Speaker 3 (37:54):
You know, I grew up watching the Begs.
Speaker 6 (37:57):
I stood on the side of the stage as a kid,
and I thought my dad was the coolest guy on
planet Earth.
Speaker 3 (38:03):
You know, I really did. But what happened was is
there was a band called Kiss that came.
Speaker 6 (38:08):
Out around the similar time, and that was my introduction
into hard rock and heavy metal. And I was always
fascinated with the guitar. So you know, when I saw
a guitar that was on fire, I said, Okay, I
don't know how or when I'm going.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
To get to do that, but I got to figure
out how to do that.
Speaker 6 (38:27):
And I knew enough to know that being a musician
and being Barry Gibbs' son was probably a terrible idea.
Speaker 3 (38:36):
And I knew that from a young age.
Speaker 6 (38:39):
So I followed my joy with the guitar, and that
took me a lot of places. You know, I've played
in a bunch of heavy metal bands over the years,
like a Black Label Society, crow Bar, Kingdom of Sorrow.
And the thing is is that I figured it made
me different enough that I could maybe carve out a
(38:59):
career and not be compared to my dad. You're singing good, now, Well,
what happened is my dad and I have always kind of,
you know, messed around a little bit, you know, writing
songs and stuff like that. So you know, I got
to learn about songwriting from the best, you know, and
I got to watch the Beg's write many times over
my you know, the course of my life.
Speaker 3 (39:20):
So I've been a student of theirs. But you know,
when when Robin.
Speaker 6 (39:24):
Passed away, Dad was clearly struggling to figure out where.
Speaker 3 (39:30):
To go in life.
Speaker 6 (39:32):
And at that point I was like, Dad, you gotta
channel this into music, like you can't sit here and
mourn forever, you know. And he said, okay, well let's
do let's do a show. And I said, yeah, you
should do that, and he goes, well, I only want
to do it if you do it with me. I mean,
I definitely didn't feel like I could step into those
roles that Robin and or Morris had. But over the
(39:57):
course of a few years, you know, with his page
and kindness, I found my place with him. You know,
I sometimes joke that I'm his emotional support animal. But
the fact of the matter is is we've come to
understand it. Even especially recently, now I know how to
harmonize with him, which I didn't really know how to do.
(40:20):
I began to learn that really by being thrown in
the fire with him, And to be honest, it's been
probably the greatest gift of my life to come full
circle and actually be with him making.
Speaker 4 (40:32):
Music toward Australia. Yeah, we toward England, we taught America
and that was an incredible year of just finding yourself again.
Speaker 1 (40:41):
Stevie said that he thought his father was the coolest guy.
Let me tell you something, stev your father is the
coolest guy. Your father reminds me of Nat King Cole. Oh,
your father reminds me of a guy that could sing
and just bring you to tears. He was so beautiful
and the songs were so beautiful, and he's sang them
(41:03):
thank you perfectly. And then when you'd watch him on film,
do it you go my god, he's also the coolest
guy I've ever seen in my life. Look at this guy.
Speaker 6 (41:12):
You know, I don't know that anybody will ever be
able to relate to this, because I do feel a
little unique in that I've had this experience.
Speaker 3 (41:20):
But I think that for me, we all have great
memories throughout.
Speaker 6 (41:25):
Our life, whether it's the you know, the birth of
our children, or or you know, that first big accomplishment
that you make, or whatever it is in life. But
I have to tell you that I was talking about
that show that we did after Robin died, and there
was a moment where he was singing and I was
off to his right on stage, and he was really
(41:49):
in a I have to say, he was kind of
transcending into another level in front of my eyes. I
was like, I could not I was reduced to tears
while I was on stage watching him sing, because you know,
I remembered being a very small kid standing on the
side of the stage going hey dad, you know, I'm
over here type of thing, and then too, you know,
(42:12):
thirty something years later, I'm standing on stage with him
and there was a moment where he took a breath
and just looked at me and it was he winked
at me, and there was the most pure expression of
love with no words between a father and son and
that moment, and I remember thinking to myself, I'll never
(42:32):
forget this moment for the rest of my life, because
there are no words for that kind of love between
a son and a father.
Speaker 3 (42:41):
And I tell him this all the time.
Speaker 6 (42:43):
I said, Dad, it's okay that you don't think you're
the greatest of all time, but just don't ever forget
that there is a second that I don't believe that
you're the greatest of all time. Just be true to
yourself and do what you love. Because his love is
pure and his expression of it is incredible, and I'll
(43:07):
never get tired of it.
Speaker 1 (43:09):
Listen, I say this only because it's true, and I
feel that we all are seekers of the truth here,
truth and beauty, and that is Stevie. Your father knows
full well that he's the greatest of all time. Who knows?
And this modesty thing, it's just a part of an act,
it's a part of a public It's always like this,
Oh oh thank you, Oh God, that's so nice of
you to say that, Oh thank you. No no, please, no, no, please,
(43:32):
Your father's fully aware of who he is and what
his towering achievements in the music industry are. Himnist brothers
and him on his ownA frozen for that matter, I
want to say I have loved you, and I have
loved your music. I mean, good music is good music,
and I have loved you and I have loved your
music forever. I mean, I have so many Beg's albums,
(43:55):
so every now and then I got to hear I
can't see Nobody. I play that song and.
Speaker 4 (44:01):
Yeah, oh my, you know, I con't see no Buddy
was written in a dressing room with strippers.
Speaker 1 (44:10):
I thought it was you were like in church.
Speaker 4 (44:13):
It was one of my greatest memory bad bums. And
here's a song.
Speaker 1 (44:19):
You know. Let's stop right there and let me just
say I'm so grateful to you. You are one of
the greatest musicians that ever lived and one of the
greatest vocalists that ever lived. And I never get tired
of listening to your music never.
Speaker 4 (44:34):
You're very kind.
Speaker 1 (44:35):
Thank you both for making time to do this. This
has been a joy. This has been a real joy.
Speaker 4 (44:38):
This has been a real joy for us too.
Speaker 1 (44:45):
I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing,
If shown you.
Speaker 2 (45:06):
SOB so you.
Speaker 1 (45:18):
We're produced by Kathleen Russo, Carrie Donahue and Zach McNeice.
Our engineer is Frank Imperial. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 6 (45:29):
Oh my odes to open up your eyes to
This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the
Thing from My Heart Radio. It's summer, and that means
it's time for our tradition at Here's the Thing, where
the staff share their favorite episodes from our archives in
our Summer Staff Picks series. Next up is producer Zach McNeice.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Thanks Alec. There are a few musical acts in history
less polarizing than the Bee Gees. I can't recall anyone
at any time in my life saying they weren't a fan.
It's impossible not to sing along with mega hits like
Staying Alive, How Deep is Your Love? More than a Woman,
Night Fever. The list goes on and on. I was
(00:41):
excited to have Barry Gibbon with Alec and the conversation
was wide ranging and full of surprises. Here's Alec with
Barry Gibb from twenty twenty one.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
As a man. The recently released HBO documentary How Can
You Mend a Broken Heart mentions the term blood harmony
or bio harmony, that unique blend when siblings sing together.
Think The Beach Boys, The Jackson Five, The Everly Brothers,
(01:22):
and The Beg's.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
Flag.
Speaker 4 (01:33):
So Love somebod.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
My guest today is Barry Gibb with his younger twin brothers,
Robin and Morris. The Begs conquered the world with their
ethereal harmonies. Today Barry misses his brothers. Morris died in
two thousand and three, Robin in twenty twelve. I wanted
to know if he'd ever considered what kind of solo
(01:57):
career he might have had.
Speaker 4 (01:59):
Well, I don't know. I know what I wanted. I
wanted to be a pop star or a rock star
or whatever it is that goes through our heads at
that point. At some point in your life, you wanted
to be an actor, you know. All I know is
that the moment that my brothers began to do individual
things and I didn't know about them. Then I thought, well,
it's okay. I can do individual things too, but I
(02:20):
never did that before they did. And once that began,
I thought, oh, oh wow, they've gone and done this
on their own. Morris has done this, or Rob has
done this. It's pretty good, you know. Wow. I didn't
know that they did that without even a question, so
I figured, well it was okay, And once Barbara Streisan
came along, I just grabbed the bar. You know, I thought,
(02:43):
this is a wonderful opportunity and I love her and
the idea of working with her. I learned so much
from that. And I think you learn things from just
about everyone you work with. You just pick up something
that you didn't know before.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Who brought you in streisand together? Was it a produce?
Speaker 4 (03:00):
And no, it was Barbara calling me up about eighty
one eighty two. And she just called up and said,
will you make an album with me? And so after
I got up off off the ground, I told my
wife and I told everybody in my family that I
just had this call from Barbra Streisen, and of course
everyone's going, you got to do it, you got to
(03:21):
do it. And I was terrified. So I came to
the conclusion that if I call Neil Diamond you don't
bring me flowers, that he might give me some advice.
So I called Neil Diamond and I said, what is
she like?
Speaker 1 (03:37):
What is it?
Speaker 4 (03:37):
What's the experience like working with her? He just said,
don't worry about it, just go do it. You know,
everything falls into place if the stars aligned. Don't worry.
He said, She's terrific and she's changeable. But that's fine.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
Just go with her. You know when you recorded with her,
were you in the same studio for some portion or
all of it or not all of it?
Speaker 4 (04:00):
Cut all the tracks in Miami at Criteria, which is
now the Hit Factory. The interesting thing about Barbara was
that if she sang something, she considered it to be sung.
She didn't think she had to sing it again. And
that's old school, you know. It's like that's how she
grew up. And I would say, you know, especially on Guilty,
first song she sang, I said, can you give us
(04:20):
about four or five tracks? She says, well, I just
sang it. No, No, can you give us choices? Can
you give us four or five tracks so that we
can pick and choose which are the best moments? But
I just sang it.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Boy, I'm going to try that when I go to work.
That's it. I'm like, Bob Hope, I'm like, that's one take,
fellas Bobby God, I hope.
Speaker 4 (04:45):
So hit the spot say the words get out.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Yeah, you talk about, you know, wanting multiple tracks to
choose from when you were recording with your brothers. Was
that a rule you had where you had unanimity about
what the take was and what worked or was there
a there was there a producer there that you will,
entrusted the decision.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
To myself but really also adhering to my brother's opinions.
We never did anything where it was two out of three.
It wasn't a democracy. You know. We had to be
in total agreement about everything we were doing. So if
we love something, we were all one, you know, and okay,
what do we do next? What's the next step? Yeah,
(05:25):
we need a lead guitar on this, We need something here,
we need something there. But we were always in agreement,
and real life is very different, so you know, we
didn't live together, but we did have the van. We
did have the minivan with the Beg's on the side.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
People talk about the documentary has introduced, at least as
far as I'm concerned, it might have existed somewhere else,
the term bioharmony. And when I first heard that phrase,
I was like, my god, I never thought about that,
that they sing differently and they interact differently because they're
actually related. I believe that that's true.
Speaker 4 (06:02):
That I've never heard that, But yeah, I agree with
all of that, and there are many different side stories
to all of that. I mean, the Beetles sound my brothers.
So there's a lot about where you come from. The
Beetles come from Liverpool. They all have the same accent,
the same tone, if you like, and so blending together
was something special for them. You didn't really have to
(06:23):
be brothers. And I was talking to a little big
town yesterday and they are incredible and they all come
from the same basic area of the country. So it
wasn't that they were blood. It was that they all
had the same dialect, the same kind of tonality. You know.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
That's Nashville when you're working with people that are your family. Yeah,
and God.
Speaker 4 (06:44):
Knows, yes, you have brothers.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
I have brothers in that way that you want everyone
to do well, you know, I want my brothers to
do well and succeed and have what they want. And
you realize that the business is fragile, you know, even
when you're successful, when you're with your brothers and you're
recording with your brothers, and they've been gone for a
while now.
Speaker 4 (07:08):
Yeah, about eight years since Robin left.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
So it's eight years now where both of them are gone.
And when Morris passed away, was it understood between you
and Rob that you wouldn't continue just the two of you.
Speaker 4 (07:22):
No, Robin wanted us to wanted to continue, and I didn't.
I didn't think it was the right thing to do.
I thought we should suspend the group as it stood,
and if we were going to work any more together,
we would do it as the two brothers, you know,
we wouldn't do it as the Begs. So. But but
Robin didn't agree with me. He wanted to continue being
(07:44):
the Beg's. But then lo and behold. What I didn't
know is that Robin was getting ill, and as time
went on he became more immorial. But he didn't tell anybody,
and so you could you could see that some thing
was wrong, but you didn't know what it was. And
(08:04):
it wasn't like he was capable of really doing anything,
because in my opinion, he wasn't, you know, he was.
He was going very frail, very quickly.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Did you guys when you went your separate ways, was
there always a sense of like the Eagles and like
Fleetwood Mac and like CSNY where they profess to have
some tension between them, yet they always got back together
because that band together whole was the cash cow for them.
It was never going to be as successful as that did.
(08:35):
The begs go through the same thing where where each
of you had your respective and you had a very
successful solo career.
Speaker 4 (08:42):
Well, the background to all of that, what you just
said is really important. The cash cow was not the
center of attention because because for us it was always
tough to get paid. Always that's shock and roll, you know.
And we didn't really make any real money until Saturday
Night Fever. So success equals money that wasn't happening for us,
(09:06):
so we didn't worry about it. What we worried about
was getting more hits, making more records, writing more songs,
you know, that was what preoccupied us. Crosby, Stills, Nash
and Young When we were doing Children of the World,
they would sitting along the wall, four of them, watching
us do the vocals, and they were in the next studio.
So the greatest thing about all of those days is
(09:27):
that the Eagles Leonard Skinner were always in the next
room or two rooms away. And in those days you
could visit each other. There was no you know, you
can't come in here, there was none of that, you know,
and we enjoyed that I could go in and listen
to them. I played with them all night without coming
(09:48):
up with anything creative. We were just having a blast.
You know.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Was there a sense from you or all three of
you that you had something special and that was the
hand and you wanted to play.
Speaker 4 (10:01):
Well it was a brand name. Well, you know, then
you're dealing with the brand name which wasn't even called
that when we were a group. You know, there was
no such thing as.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
A brand name, you know, as branding.
Speaker 4 (10:10):
Yeah. Yeah, So I've had people come up to me
at Clive Davis's dinner a couple of years back. I
worked for Forbes magazine. I'd like to talk to you
about branding. I don't know anything about branding, you know.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
He got me there.
Speaker 4 (10:24):
We just became a group, so it wasn't really this
is the cash cow, this is what we got to do.
I think it was that way for a lot of people.
But I remember the time when Rso the company took
away our song copyrights without telling us, and so suddenly
they owned all of our songs.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
How were they able to do that?
Speaker 4 (10:47):
By forming a company in Holland and playing all kinds
of tax games, they managed to acquire all of our
copyrights without us knowing, And that caused really like World
War three. I mean, so you look at the period
when the b were in trouble, look behind the scenes,
you know there was something else going on that was intense.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
Were you able to get the rights back?
Speaker 4 (11:08):
Got them all back, But that took a lot of
energy out of me. It took me about a year
or two to finally get things back in our own ownership.
I told Robert Stigwood that I would never write another
song if he didn't give back the songs. And Morris
and rob they didn't really want to fight. They were
still too naive. They just sort of, you know, it's
(11:30):
having success, let's not argue with it.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
But did that fall on you to be the more
the business mind in the trio would do? The other
two were more pure artists, and they were like, hey man,
I really don't have the stomach for that.
Speaker 4 (11:42):
Well. I couldn't stomach the idea that someone could take
away your songs. I just couldn't live with that. So
if they were okay with that, it wasn't really a
matter of that's how they felt. It was more a
matter that Robert Stigwood and Rso played divide and conquer,
you know, so they would nurture and be nicer Robin
and Morris, and Robin and Morris wouldn't worry about it,
(12:05):
you know. So it's all about that. It's people whispering
in your ears. It's the same with every group. You know,
there's always going to be someone in the industry that
thinks they can make something out of you if you
don't have your brothers. And that was said to Robin,
was said to Morris, and was said to.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
Me, I want to do a movie about your career.
I'm going to do a narrative film, and I want
to play the record executive who gets each of you
alone in the same thing. It says, you know, Marris,
if you just unloaded these two losers, you have no idea.
That's right, the heights we could hit and listen to Rob,
these guys are just dead weight around your I mean
(12:42):
your brother. I mean, we've seen every color they have, Barry,
I mean, come on, these guys are just dragging you down.
Speaker 4 (12:48):
Man.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
You know all that stuff divide and conquer.
Speaker 4 (12:51):
But industrial Yeah, not the families, not the wives, but
the people who sought to gain from something, or in fact,
just through Robert Stigwood, you know. So it was. It
was a huge industrial game. Armored Urtekin and who was
the head of Atlantic Records, and Robert began to fall
out because jive talking in the movie Saturday Night Fever.
(13:15):
Robert only used the live version of jive talking so
you wouldn't have to pay the extra, you know, and
Areef Mardin and Armored went berserk because they didn't have
a record in Saturday Night Fever. They didn't know it's
going to be successful. In fact, most of the time,
I think they doubted us anyway. So when that happened,
they were unhappy. They were really unhappy, and so I
(13:37):
think that was the cause of a lot of a
lot of crisis points for us as well as Robert.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
I'm Alec Baldwin. You were listening to Here's the Thing.
If you love conversations with legendary singers, be sure to
check out my episode with the incomparable barbous diceand we
shared lunch and talked about our love for food and
Barbara's early dreams of fame.
Speaker 5 (14:08):
I read Nancy Drew Mysteries, I read movie magazines, you know,
and dream that someday maybe I could be famous.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Did you have that dream then?
Speaker 5 (14:19):
When you were here, I would have my pint of
coffee ice cream Briers and sit in my bed and
dream go to the movies sometimes on a Saturday afternoon.
The Lowis Kings with had the greatest ice cream, and
we also.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Well, yeah, here the rest of my conversation with Barbara
streisand at Here'sthething dot org. After the break we talk
about disco and how the Beg's soundtrack to Saturday Night
Fever in nineteen seventy seven brought them near total domination
of the music charts and the dance floor. I'm Alec
(15:12):
Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing. The bee
Gees distinguished themselves vocally with their lush harmonies. Robin had
his distinctive vibrato, Morris anchored the melody, and then, like
(15:33):
an ace pitcher discovering a slider, Barry found his falsetto.
Speaker 4 (15:45):
Well. It first happened on a song call Please read
me that I did a few different falsetto harmonies to
that song, basically because of the Beach Boys and Brian
Wilson and I forgot all about that. So we were
nights on Broadway and a reef Mardenar, producer at that point,
said can anybody scream like Paul McCartney. We all looked
(16:08):
at each other and said, well, how do you mean?
He said, well, you know, like I saw her standing
there and how Paul suddenly screams a high note? Can
anyone Can any of you guys do that? And I said, well, yeah,
I done something like that way back, I said, but
I became the volunteer. Nobody else really wanted to take
a shot at that, so I went out there and
(16:30):
just discovered it. At first, it was tentative and nervous
and and I didn't know what it was. And then
it just began to get stronger and stronger.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
With you and your brothers, there's such a quotient of
beauty inside the music. There's so much sensitivity inside of
the lyrics and the singing. And I'm wondering, when you
would perform live, what was your ritual if you had one.
On the day of a live show, did you coddle
(16:59):
your voice? How did you prep for a show?
Speaker 4 (17:02):
I would wake up singing, because after a show you
lose your voice. It's gone. So the next morning you
just hope and pray that it's going to come back again,
you know, so when you wake up, you start warming up.
So I'd be doing a lot of this different range stuff.
One set of principles for the falsetto another set of
(17:23):
principles for the real voice. Check out your highest note.
Do it all day and it comes back if you're lucky.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
And how much before you would do a live show,
how much would you rehearse prior to going on the road.
Speaker 4 (17:36):
Rehearsal you would usually be about a month with weekends
out so you could work at your chops back again,
and that way you develop strength and you develop confidence.
And these days I had these three ladies that are amazing,
and so any song where Robin might have sung, they
(17:57):
cover me and they do those things. But there's actly
nothing like walking from the dressing room to the stage.
Nothing like it in the world.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Really.
Speaker 4 (18:05):
I think Bruce Springsteen said it, there's something magical about
hearing the crowd two minutes before you walk on.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
The stake coming. You're getting closer to them.
Speaker 4 (18:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
Yeah, music occupies such a unique place in people's lives,
and really dwarfs of film and television. Yeah, because film
and television is something you have to make an appointment
with you have to sit and watch it. Where music
is something that you can have in your life any anywhere.
You can be driving, you could be having sex, you
(18:34):
can be at the gym, it could be jogging. Music
is in your ears at will, whenever you want it
to be.
Speaker 4 (18:41):
That's true.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
And therefore, and I think when people I always say
the same line. When you die, you don't remember an
episode of Seinfeld? You remember? How can you ment a
broken heart? You know what I mean?
Speaker 4 (18:52):
Yes, I do. And then the question then becomes why
why does music and harmonics and vibrations and means so
much to us? You know, I love Frank Sinatra as
much as I love Pavarotti. I love the Distant Past,
the immigrant music, as much as I love country music.
I don't have categories, you know, I just love what
(19:13):
I love and it's not to any music. But why
why do we all do this?
Speaker 5 (19:18):
You know?
Speaker 4 (19:18):
What is the need in us? So I want to
do something about that. I'd love to do a program
about trying to understand that.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
I mean, this is a corny question, but like have
you ever stood there? And you were going to sing
a lyric? There was a particularly exquisite lyric of one
of your most famous songs, and you thought you were
going to break down crying.
Speaker 4 (19:41):
Yeah, have you ever.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
Been almost overwhelmed by the music you're singing?
Speaker 4 (19:45):
Yes, we wrote a song called Wish You Were Here
for Andy because he passed away at the age of thirty,
and we wanted to do it on stage and we
never could. So, you know, we got through about two
or three lines and then looked at each other. We
can't do this. We just can't do this. It's it
makes it just makes me cry. I just can't sing it.
(20:08):
At least the song is there, you know. But yes,
that was a moment. That was a moment. It's all
part of it. You're you're in a way, you're sort
of acting, and you're pretending to be someone that you
probably don't believe you are anyway. You know, the song's
always moved Me? How deep is your Love Moves Me?
And and immortality the song that's Celindian.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
I can't believe you said that. Every time I hear
that song, I think I would break down if I
sang that song because just the meaning of that song.
You wrote that song? Yeah, yeah, what is that song about?
In your mind?
Speaker 4 (20:41):
Well, I think it's it's at some point in your
life you reflect on who you are and what you
are and the culmination of your opinion, and if you
can do that, then everything's okay, you know. So so
for me, it's like, so this is who I am,
this is all I know, and I must choose to
live for all that I can and give the spark
that makes the power grow.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
But I also find it's kind of a poem, if
you will, about being a famous artist. You know, like
inside some of those lyrics, I hear someone sitting there going,
there's no turning back for me.
Speaker 4 (21:13):
Now that's right, you know, that's right. But we don't
say goodbye, and that to me is the key part
of the song. It doesn't matter whether I'm here or not,
there are no goodbyes, you know. And it was written
for Robert Stigwood wanting a song for the stage version
of Saturday Night Fever, and we'd already come up with
the song, but he wanted the guy in the show
(21:35):
to sing it, and I thought, but this is a
woman's song. It's a woman's song. Some songs are for
women and some songs are for men, you know. So
there's a masculinity in some music, and there's a femininity
in music. That's why I work with Barbara. That's right
with Diana Ross and the ability to to Selene to
lock in to the feminine side, you know, and understand
(21:56):
that Barbara Streisen still doesn't quite understand what woman in
love means. You know, it's it's a right her and
get a Rebuddal says it's a right at offend, which
is in the song. She'ays what does that mean? It's
a right at offend? And I did spend some time
explaining before the Me Too movement that women can fall
(22:20):
in love too without telling anybody. It's not all down
to the guy, you know, and I had to sort
of talk her through that. Kenny Rogers still doesn't know
what I was in the streamers about.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Come on, Kenny, well, let's let's let's throw your cards
in the table here. What songs that you've immortalized do
you not really know what they're about? Come on, it's
it's time for you to fess about. What song are
you saying you don't really get the meaning of.
Speaker 4 (22:48):
We never recorded a song that we didn't understand, you know.
There were some very abstract songs Lemon's Never Forget. I
think he's a very abstract song and not everybody's favorite.
Everything had a purpose to it. We began to learn
from the Beatles that you could write about anything. You
could write about life itself. You know. So you had
Paperback Writer or and you had Yellow Submarine, and it
(23:12):
was okay, you know, you can write about these things.
It doesn't all have to be about having your heart
broken or falling in love or they went through that,
but then they understood, they understood something about life. That's
where Sergeant Pepper reached its point, the culmination of the
peak create creativity that these guys were giving us.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
You know, well, when you mentioned Sargant Pepper, Yeah, and
I think when you go into Saturday Night Fever and
when you're inside that experience and you're recording the music
to that, did they show you cuts of the film?
Did you see some footage of the film or the
whole film to inspire you to go write the music?
Or you had to write the music without any cinematic
(23:54):
reference point.
Speaker 4 (23:55):
Robert Center's a script, but we didn't read it. We
just we just listened to his verbal describing what it was,
which is to him it was so you didn't.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
See the film finished and then write the music.
Speaker 4 (24:05):
No. Wow. He sent us a script, but we didn't
read it, and we just said, tell us what you want,
tell us what you think it is. Well, it's tribal
rites of a new Saturday Night okay. And that was
an article by Nick conn And in New York Magazine, right.
And he said, but I need a better name for
the film. And I said, well, what about night Fever?
(24:27):
And he said, no, that's too pornographic. I said, okay.
But then in the end it turned into Saturday Night
Fever and I didn't know.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
So when you're inside that experience of making that music, yeah,
do you kind of know that you're onto something or
you had no idea what that was going to become.
Speaker 4 (24:45):
We had no idea what it was going to become.
And we were trying to reinvent ourselves anyway. We just
mixed a live album that we'd done in La and
then Robert called up and said, I need five or
six songs for this film with this new gentleman named
John Travolta. So okay, all of that in itself is
exciting enough. It sort of kickstarted the ideas and staying
(25:09):
alive was one of those ideas. More than a woman.
If I can't have you, how deep your love? Obviously
a night fever. So we just started writing. We were
fifty miles outside of Paris. We didn't have, you know, television,
we didn't have any of those distractions, if you like,
and we just got on with it. And about three weeks,
(25:29):
two or three weeks, and then we got serious when
we got back to Miami and made the records for real.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Well, I just want to say as a reference point
that I am in Washington, d C. I went to
college down there first my then girlfriend who was very
much of a nightclub dancing She and her roommate, I
think there was like three couples. We go see the
movie Saturday Night Fever, and we said to ourselves, and
(25:56):
the guys are look at each other, going, Jesus Christ,
look at this. You think I'm gonna get up there
and do that in a room full of people, Like
she wants to go to clubs and go dancing like this.
I said, that's never happening. Right within two weeks, I
had the platform shoes, I had my hair blow dried
to death. My hair was blow dried like it was
(26:17):
some French pastry. I put more hairspray. My hair was
all poofed out and born out. And the shirt I got,
the shirt opened right to I got the I'm ready,
I'm ready to go. It was a tsunami Saturday night.
Fever was a tsunami.
Speaker 4 (26:37):
Yeah, whether you liked it or not, it was gonna
stay around.
Speaker 6 (26:40):
It was.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
We liked it. It was just everywhere.
Speaker 4 (26:43):
Well that my story is that we were starting to
shoot Sogeant Pepper the movie, right and and we had
Peter Frampton had his own Winter Bagel, and we had
one Winter Bagel between us, and about two weeks into
shooting the same time, Fever came out and all of
the dancers in the movie were suddenly dancing to this
(27:05):
music at the lunch breaks, and we could hear it
from our winter a bagel, Like, what what are they doing?
Why are they playing Southern feva? You know, because at
that point it hadn't taken off, you know, And within
about a week we had our own separate Winner bagels.
So there's Hollywood right there.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
You know, I don't do that.
Speaker 4 (27:25):
We made that out, but we made that movie. The
soundtrack to that movie we're the only other group to
record the Whold of Sergeant Pepper with George Martin. Right,
so there's something that's something I'm proud of.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
How would you describe that experience? You're performing somebody else's music.
Speaker 4 (27:40):
Oh yeah, but we were learning sergendary music, yes, legendary music,
and we wanted to perform that music, and George Martin
was happy to show us the different tricks that that
they would all get up to, you know, the song
sun King or because they all sang the same melody
once and then they would sing the harmony all together,
(28:03):
the same thing again, all singing the same melody, and
then they do the third harmony and they'd sing all
that together, so that you've got three guys on three
tracks singing each harmony, not three part harmony. And then
you play that back and it's mind blowing. So we
just learned stuff. We learned stuff.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
Whose idea was it to do the documentary?
Speaker 4 (28:25):
Well, it was Frank Marshall Nigel Sinclair, and they had
done the Sinarchi documentary, they'd done a couple of others
that they were very proud of. The Beatles eight days
a week, I think they did that the day that
we signed with Capital was the day I met Frank
Marshall and Steve Barnett, the president at that point, introduced
(28:46):
me to Frank Marshall. Frank Marshall said, we're going to
do this documentary and tell us something about how it
began for you guys, and I did. I told him
a story and he went, Okay, we're going to do
this documentary. That's how it began. But it was it
was two years, two and a half years before we
saw anything, and the Verse Cup didn't fly very well.
(29:09):
Why there were too many on truths, too many misconceptions
that everyone was saying, well, that's true, but it really wasn't.
So I had to take issue with some of the things.
And I know that in the end some of those
things may still be there. But I could never watch
it again because I can't watch my family pass one
(29:30):
up to the other. That's not fun.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
Barry Gibb Subscribe to Here's the Thing on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. While you're there,
leave us a review. When we return from the break,
Barry talks about his regrets, and we'll also hear from
his son Steve. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to
(30:17):
Here's the Thing that is, of course more than a
woman from the soundtrack of Saturday Night Fever. It's been
a busy time for Barry Gibb. There's the new HBO
(30:39):
documentary about the Beg's, and earlier this year, Barry released
an album of Beg's songs covered by some of Nashville's
biggest names. It's called Greenfields.
Speaker 4 (30:51):
These are people I admired the most. These are countrilogists
that have always been in my blood so ever since
I was a child. Dolly Pardons has been a really
important part of music for me.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
Inxting words take them to me.
Speaker 4 (31:13):
I wanted to get people I admired the most to
sing our songs. And maybe it's volume two that it
will happen in the future. I don't know. But this
was great fun and I was more than intimidated. But
it wasn't in my hands. It was in Dave Cobbs sense.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
When you say you were more than intimidating, absolutely, how
so well, how many people do you truly admire?
Speaker 4 (31:36):
You know, so when you're in their company you just
feel When I meet Paul McCartney. I don't know what
to say. My mouth won't say anything. You know. All
I can say is I feel fine.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
And you granted they must have been intimidated to sing
your music as well.
Speaker 4 (31:58):
Oh yeah, no, it was all the way aroun There's
no question about that. The only person I think was
not intimidated by any of us was Dave Cobb, the producer,
So he was the decider, was the decider, he was
the director.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
Well the cut you do with Dolly, Yeah, what a
beautiful rendering that is of that song. When you hear
other people sing your songs, yeah, what goes through your mind?
Speaker 4 (32:22):
It's a very flattering thing. It's like anytime over the
years anyone sang one of our songs. If someone's covering
your song, that's a huge compliment. So I have the
same feeling every time, and that goes back a long,
long way. So anyone singing our songs is wow, why
did that person sing our song?
Speaker 1 (32:41):
Now, when someone wants to sing your songs, yeah, is
it open to anybody.
Speaker 4 (32:45):
Anyone who records our song doesn't need to ask us.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
They don't.
Speaker 4 (32:49):
It's just the way it works. No one needs to
ask us to sing one of our songs. If you're
using one of our songs in a movie or in
a sing license like a commercial, you have to ask,
can you have to make it?
Speaker 1 (33:00):
Sure?
Speaker 4 (33:01):
But beyond that, anyone can record our songs.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
Would they pay you the royalties for you as the songwriter?
Speaker 4 (33:06):
Well, it we'd be paid indirectly by the system that works,
like mechanical royalties and things like that. Sure. The only
question I ever had was, I don't like commercials about alcohol.
I don't like commercials about cigarettes.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
Is it true that you have a someone's making a
feature film about the bechees?
Speaker 4 (33:25):
Yeah, the biopics in its own process right now. Graham
King is in charge of that. He did the Bohemian
Rhapsody movie, right.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
Are you going to have some participation in that?
Speaker 4 (33:34):
Absolutely? I'm sort of in agreement with Graham, and that
is that sometimes the story can be a little different
than the truth, but not too much.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
You more than your two brothers. I'll say this only
because this is my recollection of it. You know, you
guys would get out there and sing. When you watched
you sing on film, you know, it's a different story
when you're just listening to the music. But when you'd
watch you sing. Your brothers are pretty straightforward musicians, and
(34:08):
here you are, and the hair and the clothes. He
was like this preposterously handsome guy. And then you'd open
your mouth and you'd sing these like heart stoppingly beautiful songs.
And I want to ask you that, when the Beegs
were at the zenith, when everything was just clicking for you,
what was the best part of it and what was
(34:28):
the downside of it for you?
Speaker 4 (34:30):
You know, there's a lot of things I regret. Saturday
Night Fever wasn't something I regretted. I didn't like people
disregarding us after fever. I thought that was unfair. But
that's the industry, you know, it's very fragile. As you
said earlier, it will it will turn on you in
a heartbeat. And so I think generally what I regret
(34:52):
is that we became overexposed. And I think that that
was from fever, Yeah, yeah, and everything else. Just having
five songs in the top ten or three songs in
the top five. We were becoming pretty tainted. You know,
we were beginning not to really appreciate having a number
one record, but we equaled the Beatles record. We are
(35:14):
six number ones in a row, and that was all right.
I can live with that. I can little work that'll work,
you know.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
But I mean my other thing is that I find
that the business is that people tend to look at
something that's super successful and say, well, if it's successful,
then it's like potato chips. It can't be really that, right, great,
it's like a snack food. If it's something that appeals
to the general public. Two masses of the general publish.
If you're selling tens of millions of records, it can't
(35:44):
really be that it's.
Speaker 4 (35:45):
Too commercial, right right?
Speaker 1 (35:47):
Did you get it? You got a whiff of that.
Speaker 4 (35:49):
Yes, But you know, I look back a long way
and I see the final year of Elvis's life, the
final year of the Beatles, Michael Jackson, and how they
began to fragment, you know, and because nothing ever really less.
A group is not a natural state to be in
unless you're relatives, unless you're brothers or sisters. So I
(36:11):
see all that. I see that in the end, people
like Elvis Michael Beatles began to make records that weren't
quite up to the scratch of Sergeant Pebble.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
Was well when the Disco inferno, if you will dies down.
What happens to your songwriting when you realize that's petered
out that.
Speaker 4 (36:31):
Well because of the backlash, We didn't base our lives
on Fever. We just sort of well back to the studio,
you know, we were. You know, I've been married for
fifty years now, last September it was fifty years, and
I've had a wonderful time. You know, I love that
woman and we've been together for that long, and so
I always had her at my back. I always. I
(36:55):
never I never had to be out there on my own.
You had a home family. So at the end of
FEVA we were starting to raise kids, you know, and
so the distractions were plentiful. They were plentiful. And you know,
even when that happened, you think to yourself. I know,
I thought to myself, well maybe that's it. That was warm,
that was great, that was wonderful. Maybe go back to Australia,
(37:18):
maybe go back to England, and you start to question
your life and if it's time to change your life.
That was the moment that you could have done it.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
Speaking of family, your son plays with you from.
Speaker 4 (37:31):
Time, Yes, Steevie direct, Yeah, he's right here.
Speaker 1 (37:33):
Son, Stevie plays with you, and he also plays some
other types of music. He's like into heavy metal or
absolutely right, we need Stevie to come on just for
one second. Tell us, yeah, does he get the bends
when he goes from the music of Barry gibb to
the music of Metallica or whatever you're doing. What's the
scene in between that kind of music?
Speaker 3 (37:54):
You know, I grew up watching the Begs.
Speaker 6 (37:57):
I stood on the side of the stage as a kid,
and I thought my dad was the coolest guy on
planet Earth.
Speaker 3 (38:03):
You know, I really did. But what happened was is
there was a band called Kiss that came.
Speaker 6 (38:08):
Out around the similar time, and that was my introduction
into hard rock and heavy metal. And I was always
fascinated with the guitar. So you know, when I saw
a guitar that was on fire, I said, Okay, I
don't know how or when I'm going.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
To get to do that, but I got to figure
out how to do that.
Speaker 6 (38:27):
And I knew enough to know that being a musician
and being Barry Gibbs' son was probably a terrible idea.
Speaker 3 (38:36):
And I knew that from a young age.
Speaker 6 (38:39):
So I followed my joy with the guitar, and that
took me a lot of places. You know, I've played
in a bunch of heavy metal bands over the years,
like a Black Label Society, crow Bar, Kingdom of Sorrow.
And the thing is is that I figured it made
me different enough that I could maybe carve out a
(38:59):
career and not be compared to my dad. You're singing good, now, Well,
what happened is my dad and I have always kind of,
you know, messed around a little bit, you know, writing
songs and stuff like that. So you know, I got
to learn about songwriting from the best, you know, and
I got to watch the Beg's write many times over
my you know, the course of my life.
Speaker 3 (39:20):
So I've been a student of theirs. But you know,
when when Robin.
Speaker 6 (39:24):
Passed away, Dad was clearly struggling to figure out where.
Speaker 3 (39:30):
To go in life.
Speaker 6 (39:32):
And at that point I was like, Dad, you gotta
channel this into music, like you can't sit here and
mourn forever, you know. And he said, okay, well let's
do let's do a show. And I said, yeah, you
should do that, and he goes, well, I only want
to do it if you do it with me. I mean,
I definitely didn't feel like I could step into those
roles that Robin and or Morris had. But over the
(39:57):
course of a few years, you know, with his page
and kindness, I found my place with him. You know,
I sometimes joke that I'm his emotional support animal. But
the fact of the matter is is we've come to
understand it. Even especially recently, now I know how to
harmonize with him, which I didn't really know how to do.
(40:20):
I began to learn that really by being thrown in
the fire with him, And to be honest, it's been
probably the greatest gift of my life to come full
circle and actually be with him making.
Speaker 4 (40:32):
Music toward Australia. Yeah, we toward England, we taught America
and that was an incredible year of just finding yourself again.
Speaker 1 (40:41):
Stevie said that he thought his father was the coolest guy.
Let me tell you something, stev your father is the
coolest guy. Your father reminds me of Nat King Cole. Oh,
your father reminds me of a guy that could sing
and just bring you to tears. He was so beautiful
and the songs were so beautiful, and he's sang them
(41:03):
thank you perfectly. And then when you'd watch him on film,
do it you go my god, he's also the coolest
guy I've ever seen in my life. Look at this guy.
Speaker 6 (41:12):
You know, I don't know that anybody will ever be
able to relate to this, because I do feel a
little unique in that I've had this experience.
Speaker 3 (41:20):
But I think that for me, we all have great
memories throughout.
Speaker 6 (41:25):
Our life, whether it's the you know, the birth of
our children, or or you know, that first big accomplishment
that you make, or whatever it is in life. But
I have to tell you that I was talking about
that show that we did after Robin died, and there
was a moment where he was singing and I was
off to his right on stage, and he was really
(41:49):
in a I have to say, he was kind of
transcending into another level in front of my eyes. I
was like, I could not I was reduced to tears
while I was on stage watching him sing, because you know,
I remembered being a very small kid standing on the
side of the stage going hey dad, you know, I'm
over here type of thing, and then too, you know,
(42:12):
thirty something years later, I'm standing on stage with him
and there was a moment where he took a breath
and just looked at me and it was he winked
at me, and there was the most pure expression of
love with no words between a father and son and
that moment, and I remember thinking to myself, I'll never
(42:32):
forget this moment for the rest of my life, because
there are no words for that kind of love between
a son and a father.
Speaker 3 (42:41):
And I tell him this all the time.
Speaker 6 (42:43):
I said, Dad, it's okay that you don't think you're
the greatest of all time, but just don't ever forget
that there is a second that I don't believe that
you're the greatest of all time. Just be true to
yourself and do what you love. Because his love is
pure and his expression of it is incredible, and I'll
(43:07):
never get tired of it.
Speaker 1 (43:09):
Listen, I say this only because it's true, and I
feel that we all are seekers of the truth here,
truth and beauty, and that is Stevie. Your father knows
full well that he's the greatest of all time. Who knows?
And this modesty thing, it's just a part of an act,
it's a part of a public It's always like this,
Oh oh thank you, Oh God, that's so nice of
you to say that, Oh thank you. No no, please, no, no, please,
(43:32):
Your father's fully aware of who he is and what
his towering achievements in the music industry are. Himnist brothers
and him on his ownA frozen for that matter, I
want to say I have loved you, and I have
loved your music. I mean, good music is good music,
and I have loved you and I have loved your
music forever. I mean, I have so many Beg's albums,
(43:55):
so every now and then I got to hear I
can't see Nobody. I play that song and.
Speaker 4 (44:01):
Yeah, oh my, you know, I con't see no Buddy
was written in a dressing room with strippers.
Speaker 1 (44:10):
I thought it was you were like in church.
Speaker 4 (44:13):
It was one of my greatest memory bad bums. And
here's a song.
Speaker 1 (44:19):
You know. Let's stop right there and let me just
say I'm so grateful to you. You are one of
the greatest musicians that ever lived and one of the
greatest vocalists that ever lived. And I never get tired
of listening to your music never.
Speaker 4 (44:34):
You're very kind.
Speaker 1 (44:35):
Thank you both for making time to do this. This
has been a joy. This has been a real joy.
Speaker 4 (44:38):
This has been a real joy for us too.
Speaker 1 (44:45):
I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing,
If shown you.
Speaker 2 (45:06):
SOB so you.
Speaker 1 (45:18):
We're produced by Kathleen Russo, Carrie Donahue and Zach McNeice.
Our engineer is Frank Imperial. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 6 (45:29):
Oh my odes to open up your eyes to
Host
Alec Baldwin
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